International draughts

International draughts (also called Polish draughts or

international checkers) is a strategy board game for two players, International draughts
one of the variants of draughts. The gameboard comprises 10×10
squares in alternating dark and light colours, of which only the 50
dark squares are used. Each player has 20 pieces, light for one
player and dark for the other, at opposite sides of the board. In
conventional diagrams, the board is displayed with the light pieces
at the bottom; in this orientation, the lower-left corner square must
be dark.

International draughts starting

Contents position
Rules Genre(s) Board game
Starting position Abstract strategy
Moves and captures game
Crowning Players 2
Winning and draws
Setup time < 1 minute
Notation
Random None
Sport chance
Computers Skill(s) Strategy, tactics
Schwarzman beat Maximus (2012) required
List of top international draughts programs
Synonym(s) Polish draughts
Computer tournament winners International
See also checkers
References 10×10 draughts
10×10 checkers
External links

Rules
The general rule is that all moves and captures are made diagonally. All references to squares refer to the dark
squares only. The main differences from English draughts are: the size of the board (10×10), pieces can also
capture backward (not only forward), the long-range moving and capturing capability of kings known as
flying, and the requirement that the maximum number of men be captured whenever a player has capturing
options.

Starting position
The game is played on a board with 10×10 squares, alternatingly dark and light. The lower-
leftmost square should be dark.
Each player has 20 pieces. In the starting position (see illustration) the pieces are placed on
the first four rows closest to the players. This leaves two central rows empty.
Moves and captures
The player with the light pieces moves first. Then turns
alternate.
Ordinary pieces move one square diagonally forward to an
unoccupied square.
Enemy pieces can and must be captured by jumping over the
enemy piece, two squares forward or backward to an
unoccupied square immediately beyond. If a jump is possible
it must be done, even if doing so incurs a disadvantage.
Multiple successive jumps forward or backward in a single
turn can and must be made if after each jump there is an
unoccupied square immediately beyond the enemy piece.
It is compulsory to jump over as many pieces as possible.
One must play with the piece that can make the maximum
number of captures. Example of moves, including
A jumped piece is removed from the board at the end of notation
the turn. (So for a multi-jump move, jumped pieces are not
removed during the move, they are removed only after the
entire multi-jump move is complete.)
The same piece may not be jumped more than once.

Crowning
A piece is crowned if it stops on the far edge of the board at the end of its turn (that is, not if it
reaches the edge but must then jump another piece backward). Another piece is placed on top
of it to mark it. Crowned pieces, sometimes called kings, can move freely multiple steps in any
direction and may jump over and hence capture an opponent piece some distance away and
choose where to stop afterwards, but must still capture the maximum number of pieces
possible.

Winning and draws

A player with no valid move remaining loses. This occurs if the player has no pieces left, or if all
the player's pieces are obstructed from moving by opponent pieces.
A game is a draw if neither opponent has the possibility to win the game.
The game is considered a draw when the same position repeats itself for the third time (not
necessarily consecutive), with the same player having the move each time.
A king-versus-king endgame is automatically declared a draw, as is any other position proven
to be a draw.

These are extra rules accommodated in some tournaments and may vary:

If, during 25 moves, there were only king movements, without piece movements or jumps, the
game is considered a draw.
If there are only three kings, two kings and a piece, or a king and two pieces against a king, the
game will be considered a draw after the two players have each played 16 turns.[1]
 Before a proposal for a draw can be made, at least 40 moves must have been made by each
player.[2][3]

Notation
Each of the fifty dark squares has a number (1 through 50).[4] Number
46 is at the left corner seen from the player with the light pieces. Number
5 is at the left corner seen from the player with the dark pieces.

Sport
The first world championship was held in international draughts in 1894.
It was won by Frenchman Isidore Weiss, who held the title for eighteen
years with seven world championship titles. Then, for nearly sixty years,
the title was held by representatives from either France or the
Netherlands, including Herman Hoogland, Stanislas Bizot, Marius Fabre, Notation: squares with their
Ben Springer, Maurice Raichenbach, Pierre Ghestem, and Piet numbers
Roozenburg. In 1956, the hegemony of the French and the Dutch was
broken: the champion was Canadian Marcel Deslauriers. In 1958, the
USSR's Iser Kuperman became the world champion, beginning the era of Soviet domination in international
draughts, a feat which would mirror their domination at chess around this time.

The official status of the world championships are held under the auspices of the World Draughts Federation
(FMJD) since 1948. In 1998, the first World Championship was held in the format of the blitz. The first
Women's World Championship was held in 1973. The first women's champion was Elena Mikhailovskaya
from Soviet Union. A World Junior Championship has been contested since 1971; the first winner was
Nicholay Mischansky.

In addition to the World Championships, there is also a European Championships since 1965 (men) and 2000
(women).

The World Draughts Federation maintains a ranking.[5] As of July 2015, the men's list is headed by Alexander
Shvartsman from Russia, and the women's list is headed by Zoja Golubeva from Latvia.

Computers
Computer draughts programs have been improving every year. First draughts programs were written in the
mid-1970s.[6] The first computer draughts tournament took place in 1987.[7] In 1993, computer draughts
program Truus ranked about 40th in the world.[8] In 2003 computer draughts program Buggy beat world
number 8 Samb.[9] In 2005, the 10-time world champion and 2005 World champion, Alexei Chizhov,
commented that he could not beat the computer, but he also would not lose to the computer.[10] In 2010, the 9
piece endgame database was built.[11]

Schwarzman beat Maximus (2012)

Alexander Schwarzman beat computer program Maximus on April 14, 2012. Schwarzman won game 2 in the
6-game match. The other 5 games were draws. Schwarzman was world champion in 1998, 2007, and 2009.
Jan-Jaap van Horssen of the Netherlands wrote Maximus. Maximus used a six-piece endgame database. The
computer was an Intel core i7-3930K at 3.2 GHz 32 gigabytes memory; it had six cores with hyperthreading.
The average search depth was 24.5 ply. The average number of moves evaluated per second was 23,357,000.
The average search time was 3 minutes and 52.98 seconds.[12][13]

List of top international draughts programs

Scan by Fabien Letouzey
KingsRow[14] by Ed Gilbert
Dragon Draughts[15]
Damage by Bert Tuyt
Damy
Maximus

Some older well known programs are:

Truus
Flits

Computer tournament winners

Culemborg 2013 Dragon Draughts
Culemborg 2012 Dragon Draughts[16]
Culemborg 2011 Maximus[17]
Culemborg 2010 Damage[18]
Culemborg 2009 Damy[19]

See also
Dameo
Hexdame – international draughts rules applied to a hexagonal board
List of Draughts European Championship winners
List of Draughts World Championship winners
List of women's Draughts European Championship winners
List of women's Draughts World Championship winners

References
1. "Jeu de dames - FFJD - Fédération Française" (http://www.ffjd.fr/Web/site/technique/regle-jeu.p
hp?mzc=4) (in French). Ffjd.fr. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
2. "Official FMJD rules for competitions" (http://fmjd.org/docs/Annex%203%20official%20FMJD%
20rules%20for%20%20competitions.doc). fmjd.org. 2014-02-19.
3. "Official FMJD rules for competitions" (http://fmjd.org/docs/Annexe%203%20reglement%20offic
iel%20en%20cours%20de%20competition.doc) (in French). fmjd.org. 2014-02-19.
4. "Dammen" (http://www.damweb.nl/tech/notatie.htm). Damweb.nl. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
5. http://www.fmjd.org/rat.php
6. "Orange" (http://alemanni.pagesperso-orange.fr/dam11_e.html). Retrieved 24 September 2016.
 7. "Orange" (http://alemanni.pagesperso-orange.fr/page1c_e.html). Retrieved 24 September
2016.
8. "Searching for Solutions in Games and Artificial Intelligence By Louis Victor Allis. Chapter 6
section 3.8 page 169" (http://fragrieu.free.fr/SearchingForSolutions.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved
October 4, 2019.
9. "The draughts program Buggy" (http://www.buggy-online.com/index_e.htm). Retrieved
24 September 2016.
10. "Who wins a match between the world champion and a computer? - World Draughts Forum" (ht
tp://laatste.info/bb3/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=1692&p=49645#p49645). Retrieved 24 September
2016.
11. Gilbert, Ed. "9 piece endgame database" (http://edgilbert.org/Checkers/KingsRow.htm).
Retrieved 4 October 2011.
12. "Maximus – Schwarzman: digitale gladiator tegen keizer van vlees en bloed" (https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20120415072601/http://nkdammen2012.nl/index.php/nevenactiviteiten/match-maxi
mus-schwarzman) (in Dutch). Archived from the original (http://www.nkdammen2012.nl/index.p
hp/nevenactiviteiten/match-maximus-schwarzman) on 15 April 2012. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
13. van Horssen, Jan-Jaap. "Maximus vs. Schwarzman draughts match" (http://laatste.info/bb3/vie
wtopic.php?f=53&t=3801&start=30). Draughts, Computer, Internet. World Draughts Forum.
Retrieved 10 May 2012.
14. Kingsrow (http://edgilbert.org/Checkers/KingsRow.htm) Ed Gilbert site
15. "Dragon draughts - computer program" (http://mdgsoft.home.xs4all.nl/draughts/index.html).
mdgsoft.home.xs4all.nl. Retrieved October 4, 2019.
16. "Sneldamkampioenschap van Nederland 2012" (http://home.kpn.nl/nagel580/compdam/hs330
0.htm). Home.kpn.nl. 2012-09-16. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
17. "Sneldamkampioenschap van Nederland 2011" (http://home.kpn.nl/nagel580/compdam/hs327
0.htm). Home.kpn.nl. 2011-09-18. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
18. "Sneldamkampioenschap van Nederland 2010" (http://home.kpn.nl/nagel580/compdam/hs323
0.htm). Home.kpn.nl. 2010-09-12. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
19. "Sneldamkampioenschap van Nederland 2009" (http://home.kpn.nl/nagel580/compdam/hs319
0.htm). Home.kpn.nl. 2009-09-13. Retrieved 2014-01-26.

External links
FMJD (World Draughts Federation) (http://fmjd.org/?p=annex) Rules and Regulations

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_draughts&oldid=994398743"

This page was last edited on 15 December 2020, at 14:46 (UTC).

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